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To promote stable, constructive labor-management relations through the resolution and prevention of labor disputes in a manner that gives full effect to the collective-bargaining rights of employees, unions, and agencies.

This matter is before the Authority on exceptions to the
award of Arbitrator Ellen M. Bussey. The Arbitrator found that the Agency had
not violated the parties' collective bargaining agreement which provides that
non-bargaining unit employees will not be scheduled for overtime for the sole
purpose of eliminating the need to schedule bargaining unit employees for
overtime. Award at 9. Accordingly, the Arbitrator denied the Union's grievance.

The Union filed exceptions under section 7122(a) of the
Federal Service Labor-Management Relations Statute (the Statute) and part 2425
of the Authority's Rules and Regulations. The Agency did not file an
opposition.

We conclude that the Union has not established that the
Arbitrator's award is contrary to law, regulation, or the parties' negotiated
agreement. Consequently, we deny the Union's exceptions.

II. Background and Arbitrator's Award

In 1982, the Social Security Administration (SSA) decided
to institute a system of compulsory overtime in the Automated Data Processing
Operation (ADP) section of the National Computer Center (Center) to ensure that
the Center would be staffed 24 hours a day on weekends and holidays. The Union
objected and contended that the change posed a hardship for some of its
bargaining unit members. The Union requested bargaining. The bargaining
resulted in a Memorandum of Understanding of July 1983, (MOU) in which the
parties "agreed that the Agency would use contractor support personnel in the
ADP but 'would continue to offer available overtime to qualified SSA employees
who volunteer.'" Award at 3.

Prior to January 17, 1987, overtime was available to
bargaining unit employees in the Computer Systems Operations Branch (CSOB) on
an almost unlimited basis. In January 1987, the overtime hours allocated to
CSOB were reduced by one-third. The Union filed a grievance on behalf of 17
individuals and 3 groups alleging that between January 17, 1987, and July 18,
1987, the Agency violated Article 10, Section 2(F) of the Agreement and the MOU
by using outside contractors instead of bargaining unit members for
overtime.

The Agency argued before the Arbitrator that because of
the reduction in the number of overtime hours allotted to CSOB, the
opportunities for overtime declined. Consequently, at times employees were
turned down for the number of hours and/or the times they wished to work.
Further, the Agency claimed that bargaining unit employees testified at the
hearing that they stopped applying for overtime when they found overtime to be
less flexible and they were turned down for overtime assignments. Award at
4.

The Union contended that in the period at issue--January
17, 1987 to July 18, 1987--bargaining unit employees were improperly denied the
opportunity to work overtime. Further, the Union contended that the MOU
required the Agency to offer available overtime to bargaining unit employees
and that available overtime means any overtime contained in the total SSA
budget. Therefore, the Union concluded that the overtime eliminated from CSOB
but which was still available agency-wide within the SSA was available overtime
for CSOB bargaining unit employees.

The Arbitrator found that there was no dispute that the
MOU "requires that the Agency will offer available overtime to qualified SSA
employees who volunteer, and will utilize contractors as support personnel only
when suitable SSA employees are not available." Award at 7. Further, she found
that there "is no disagreement that Fiscal 1987 budget cuts for the Office of
Computer Processing Operations curtailed overtime for the 24-hour Automated
Data Processing Operation from January to July 1987." Id. The Arbitrator
concluded that the "dispute centers on whether a cut in the overtime budget of
OCPO means that its bargaining members no longer had access to the overtime
which had been cut and on whether Management violated Article 10(2)(F) of the
Agreement by using contractors in order to avoid the scheduling of bargaining
unit employees for overtime between January and July 1987." Award at 7,
8.

The Arbitrator rejected the Union's argument that the
available overtime clause of the MOU referred to agency-wide overtime. The
Arbitrator found that "[a]side from the obvious conflicts inherent in this type
of overtime management, the confusion resulting from a random, agency-wide,
signing up of employees for greatly varied, and often highly skilled, overtime
tasks, would be too profound and time-consuming to be serviceable." Award at 8.
The Arbitrator noted that "Contract Article 10, Section 3(B) is responsive to
these potential problems by requiring that overtime time rosters be maintained
and applied in headquarters at the division level." Id. Further, she
found that the "history of instant dispute shows that from its beginning in
1982 to the filing of the grievance on March 12, 1987, its focus never went
beyond the computer processing operation." Award at 8.

The Arbitrator found that the "Union was unable to show
that Management put contractors in overtime jobs for which bargaining unit
members with the proper skills had previously volunteered." Award at 9.
Further, the Arbitrator found that the "Union was unable to provide evidence
that bargaining unit employees who had met the skill and timing requirements
for overtime work between January 17 and July 18, 1987 had been refused
overtime because contract personnel [were] arbitrarily substituted." Award at
9. Consequently, the Arbitrator found that there was no evidence that the
Agency violated Article 10, Section 2(F) of the parties' collective bargaining
agreement and, therefore, she denied the grievance.

III. Exceptions

The Union contends that the Arbitrator failed to properly
consider and decide the issue before her and "otherwise failed to follow the
proper rules governing the scope of authority of arbitrators as contained in 5
USC 7122 and Section 2425 of the rules and regulations." Exceptions at
1.

The Union asserts that the Arbitrator's decision is based
on a nonfact and a misunderstanding of how overtime works. The Union claims
that "[t]he grievance that was filed alleged that the Employer had utilized
this contractor in lieu of bargaining unit employees." Exceptions at 5. The
Union alleges that in the MOU the Agency agreed to the following procedure to
assign overtime: (1) advise unit employees when overtime is available and then
query them to find out who wishes to work; (2) compile a list of unit employees
who volunteered to work overtime; and, (3) if they have enough unit employees,
to not utilize contract employees. Id. The Union argues that this
procedure was used until early 1987 when the Agency stopped asking SSA
employees to see who wished to work overtime and, instead, began to use only
contract employees to work overtime.

The Union also contends that the Arbitrator "seems to be
denying the grievance because she reasoned that SSA employees did not make
themselves available to work overtime." Exceptions at 6. The Union claims that
the contract and MOU violation that was grieved was "that the Employer did not
solicit SSA employees to work overtime; therefore, because they were not
solicited, obviously the qualified SSA employees were unable to make known
their availability to work the overtime." Id. Consequently, the Union
contends that even qualified SSA employees cannot work overtime unless
management first properly solicits and then permits them to work
overtime.

IV. Analysis and Conclusion

We conclude that the Union has failed to establish that
the Arbitrator's award is deficient on any of the grounds set forth in section
7122(a) of the Statute; that is, that the award is contrary to any law, rule,
or regulation or that it is deficient on other grounds similar to those applied
by Federal courts in private sector labor-management relations
cases.

The Union asserts that the Arbitrator failed to properly
consider and decide the issue before her. The Union also claims that the
Arbitrator's reliance on a nonfact and her misunderstanding of how overtime
works resulted in her incorrectly finding that the Agency did not violate the
parties' collective bargaining agreement by using contract employees in lieu of
bargaining unit employees to perform overtime work.

We find that the Union's contentions constitute nothing
more than disagreement with the Arbitrator's findings and conclusions that the
Agency did not violate the parties' collective bargaining agreement. The
Union's contentions are an attempt to relitigate the merits of the grievance.
These contentions provide no basis for finding an award deficient. See,
for example, Department of Health and Human Services, Social Security
Administration and American Federation of Government Employees, Local 1923,
31 FLRA 1181 (1988) (exceptions which merely attempt to relitigate the merits
of the case before the Authority and which constitute nothing more than
disagreement with the Arbitrator's interpretation and application of the
collective bargaining agreement provide no basis for finding an award
deficient); Oklahoma Air Logistics Center, Tinker Air Force Base, Oklahoma
and American Federation of Government Employees, Local 916, Oklahoma City,
Oklahoma, 30 FLRA 20 (1987) (exceptions which constitute nothing more than
disagreement with an arbitrator's finding of fact, reasoning, and conclusions
provide no basis for finding an award deficient).